A forty-year memory is a dicey thing. You remember the stories you’ve told yourself rather than the actual events. Things get embellished, things get blocked depending on your needs. In my case, I think, blocked. I’ve banished memories, painful and embarrassing. Alcohol adds an extra curtain, a sheer one, not quite opaque. Another layer to peer through, or maybe around. My brothers might read this and say “No Jeff, that’s not how things went down. Pie wasn’t there, but Jid’s husband was.” It doesn’t matter. It’s a solid memory, and I’ve carried it most of my life. For me, it’s true.
We sat in the atrium, two four-tops pushed together. The hotel rose around us on all sides like some great cenote with balconies, hanging plants and a glass elevator. After the reception ended, my brothers, Leslie and I escorted my aunts back to their hotel. My father stayed home, washing dishes and wrapping up the leftover food. My aunts would all fly away the next day, and Leslie would return to school. Everyone left and the reality of life without my mother set in. But first we got drunk.
Jid, Joan and Pie were old-school New England stock. Those ladies could party. Their wealthy parents adopted my orphaned father when his adult sister sailed off to England to start a new life. My father tells a story about an ancient New Years’ brunch—prime rib, roasted oysters and Champaigne toasts. Pie, the youngest and barely a teen, was trashed before noon. Alcohol was part of who they were. Me, just a few months out of college, I searched for an identity to emulate.
The waitress came by and started with Joan “Have the bartender fill a water glass with ice and Tanqueray and then say the word ‘vermouth’. That’s how I like my martini.”
“I’ll have one of those too. Oh, and olives. Lots of olives.”
When I was young, maybe five or six, my father came home from work daily and mixed himself a martini. “Whatcha drinking dad?”
“Firewater!” As his drink got low and watery, my brothers and I crowded around him and begged for his gin-soaked olives. The boozy flavor caused an involuntary pucker, a mouthful of flame. Repetition and approval from my father turned that eyewatering bite into something to covet. At twenty-one, I could have my own damn gin with olives.
When my mother died, my brothers and I were watching The Final Conflict, the third movie in the Omen trilogy. My dad called from the hospital “It’s over, she’s gone.” We sat in front of the TV, staring at the frozen and jumpy movie image and wondered what to do.
Today, I read a story by Georgia Kreiger. She writes about how her trauma is triggered by a ringing phone. As a child, her father answered the phone, had a short conversation and then died. The phone and death being forever tied together throughout her life. I have some of this as well. One morning three years ago, I noticed I had a voice mail from my brother. “Hey Jeff, give me a call when you can.” A phone call? Weird, we always text. I knew my father died. But he didn’t. Instead, our friend Joe took his own life. My father is ninety-two now, and recently in and out of the hospital twice. Now when my phone rings, my first thought is “Get ready. Here it comes.”
Crowded around the tables in the hotel was the first and only time I drank with my father’s generation. I suppose we heard tall tales about my dad’s childhood. Stories he’d never tell me himself. But in truth, I can’t remember any of it. As the night progressed, as I got deeper into the Tanqueray, my unconscious body-clench relaxed. I noticed that the pain of my mother’s death didn’t hurt as much. I set a goal to become pain-free.
After that night, Tanqueray became my wonder drug. It blurred the jagged edges making them look smooth. I found the identity I was looking for. I became the skinny kid with a goblet of gin. Once, at a party, a friend’s girlfriend said, “I think you’re so screwed up because you never grieved for your mother.” That comment was the coffin nail in our relationship, but I knew she was right. Blunting life seemed easier than living it.
My last memory from the evening with my aunts: Leslie and I rode up the glass elevator, looking out over a room full of business travelers and pathetic locals who couldn’t think of a better place to hang out than a hotel bar. When we got to the top floor, we pulled the emergency stop and made out in front of the window, groping at each other through our clothes, up on a stage for the world to see. Tanqueray numbs more than just pain.
The Other Stuff 
Bad news on phone still jolts me. I am the one who usually makes the calls. I hate Facebook because that is how I found out my Aunt died. I shut that down from hundreds of friends to my daughter and best friend.
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Facebook is the primary way I learn about the death of old friends (which happens way to frequently). I sort of appreciate it. It gives me an opportunity to process the death internally without a bunch of people asking if I’m alright.
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I can understand that.
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Memory is tricky stuff. I remembered a pool from the 60s as having a grass slope on one side of the grandstand. When I returned in 2017, the grass was on the other side and it was flat. At least the grandstand was still there!
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MY wife tells a story about how her childhood bedroom was at the ‘far end’ of the hall (like it was it’s own wing in a mansion), and she worried constantly about being abducted (Patty Hearst was in the news). We drove by her home once to see it, Any you couldn’t imagine a smaller house. The far end of the hall was probably two feet away from the next doorway. Things look much bigger and more grand when we’re young.
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Powerful writing, Jeff. And a head-on tackle of a difficult subject.
I know that memory is dicey, as you say. I’ve been able to verify that some of my childhood memories are inaccurate through photographs and even by looking at Zillow views of the yard of one of my childhood homes. But I would swear that the memory of the day my father died is as clear as if it were still happening. I may not be able to tell you what I had for dinner last night, but I can tell you what the two neighborhood doctors who delivered CPR to my dad as he died were wearing. It’s like that event, in every detail, is burned into my mind forever.
Thank you for mentioning my post. I appreciate that.
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I don’t doubt your memory is accurate. 1st no alcohol involved. I’ve written a lot of detailed memoir over the years. I’ve adopted the mantra that it doesn’t necessarily matter if it’s all true as long as it’s true to you (unless you are accusing someone of something bad). Regarding, linking your post, people have done that for me many times. I think some of the people who normally ready my blog would appreciate your writing.
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I’m getting many more visitors, so thanks.
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Beautiful and intriguing read.
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Thank you. I’m happy you read it.
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Vivid writing, Jeff. I have also learned that grief has a way of freezing and elevating the prominence of memories, holidays, phone calls, full moons, addictions.
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Right, grief seems to slow time, allowing you to absorb more of what’s around you. I have a memory from when I was a very young child when my cat got hit by a car. Those memories are extremely fresh.
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Maybe it’s grief’s gift.
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Powerful, Jeff. There’s a particularly raw aspect to this one that makes it especially moving.
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Thank you Stacey. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to consider my descent into alcohol abuse without getting raw. So many lost years.
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Wow – what a powerful piece, Jeff. Identity, grief, alcohol, loss – the way you’ve interwoven such powerful themes into this one piece is brilliant.
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What a well-written piece! I consider the memory lane strolls I write about to be memoirs rather than autobiographies because I understand that my own memory is a faulty, rather fragile thing. As you may guess from my nom de plume, I’ve also had a dalliance with alcohol, as well as other substances, in my life. So while I don’t entirely trust my memory, it still entertains me. Your own stroll has moved me to call to check on my mom.
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That’s interesting. I didn’t even notice the name of your blog. I was simply scrolling through stuff called ‘memoir’ and your title attracted me. I could (and probably should) have a long conversation with another memoirist with a history of substance abuse. There are so many issues left in the wake of that lifestyle. Yesterday on a bike ride, I was considering what I call the ‘sobriety paradox’. The tendency for the sober (me, at least) to romanticize the drinking days even as I know how dangerous and destructive they were. Probably the topic of an upcoming essay.
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Grief is love with nowhere to go. So I drank it away and managed to numb everything and never felt my feeling until one day about 3 years ago I stopped. The work it takes to move past the past and deal with the present is not easy but oh so worth it. The blessing of an ‘extra ordinary’ ordinary life was waiting. Doesn’t sound like you miss it either.
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I’m embarrassed to say that the thing that has made sobriety palatable for me is finding some high-quality non-alcoholic IPAs. I still get the feeling of reward from enjoying a beer without the numbing effect and the desire to have more and more. It took me a lot longer than three years, but I think I’ve hit the place that you describe in your comment.
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